Biggest Serb party in Bosnia threatens 2018 secession

SARAJEVO, April 25 (Reuters) - The largest Serb party in
Bosnia said on Saturday it would push for a referendum on
independence for the country's autonomous Serb Republic in 2018,
setting it on a collision course with the West, unless the
region is granted greater powers.

The threat represents potentially the greatest challenge to
Bosnian statehood since it split from federal Yugoslavia and
descended into war that killed 100,000 people from 1992 to 1995.

The SNSD party, which is led by the Republic's nationalist
president Milorad Dodik, adopted a resolution making the
independence threat official party policy.

Dodik accuses state authorities in Bosnia of trying to usurp
autonomous powers granted to the Serb Republic under a
U.S.-brokered peace deal.

"The Serb Republic cannot accept any further takeover of its
authorities by the state under the guise of reform," he told
reporters after an SNSD convention.

The resolution states that unless the Serb Republic is able
to strengthen its autonomy by the end of 2017, the regional
assembly, in which SNSD currently holds a majority, will call a
referendum to break from the Bosniak-Croat Federation, the other
half of Bosnia.

"Based on the referendum results, the Serb Republic
authorities... will propose to the Federation a peaceful
dissolution and mutual recognition," it said, adding that the
region would pursue membership of the European Union.

In response, the office of Bosnia's international peace
overseer, who has the power to fire officials and overturn laws,
said that under the 1995 peace accord, neither entity has the
right to secede. "No party paper can change these facts," it
said in a statement.

REFORM IMPASSE

Dodik argued that the Serb Republic's own constitution and
laws left room for self-determination.

He has long advocated Bosnia's dissolution, putting him at
odds with Western powers that have invested thousands of troops
and billions of euros in securing sovereignty for the Balkan
state.

While the Bosniaks want a strong, more centralised state,
Serbs are fiercely defensive of their autonomy and some Croats
want their own entity.

The SNSD resolution has the potential to undermine a new EU
initiative to spur economic and political reform in Bosnia after
years of stagnation that triggered unprecedented civil unrest in
February last year.

Analysts speculate that Dodik has been emboldened by events
in Ukraine and Russia's annexation of Crimea. He has also grown
increasingly assertive since an election in October last year
that shook his eight-year hold on power.
(Editing by Matt Robinson and Mark Trevelyan)